Lee Semel

I love maps of all kinds, and one of my favorites is the Isometric Map of New York. This map, developed by hand in the 60s, depicts accurate drawings of each block and building, down to small street details such as bus stops and newsstands. It’s a mesmerizing experience to use this map to wander around the city from the comfort of your chair.

Now a group of NY and CA entrepreneurs has replicated this experience online. Upnext is a 3D city map of that runs right in the browser as a Java applet, and is full of local information and reviews–dining, shopping, nightlife. You can click on any building and see a list of all its tenants. While you can probably get similar information from Yelp, it’s fun to walk around the city streets, take a peek into buildings, and discover what’s there. It would be great if the site could incorporate satellite imagery to increase the realism, if it was offered in a more accessible format than a Java applet, and if users could tag locations with information other than reviews, similar to the multiple data layers in Google Earth.

Today we’re launching the new nextNY blog. If you’re not familiar with nextNY, it’s a group that started as an informal gathering of young people in the NY technology and digital media community. It all began with a single announcement made by Charlie O’Donnell at a Meetup last year. Since then it’s grown to over 600 people, and we’ve had a lot of great events since then.

At one of these events, we talked about the future of the NY technology community, and proposed ways to help it grow. One of the issues raised was that NY companies and personalities just don’t have a very high profile. This blog is designed to help change that. It will cover NY technology, entrepreneurship, startups, digital media, events, personalities, companies, success stories, and bring together the leading voices of the industry.

How does the nextNY blog work?
Anthony from SquareSpace did a great job setting up our original blog, which was run by a team of authors from nextNY. Unfortunately, it garnered only a few posts per month. Maintaining a separate blog was just too much extra work. To really make an impact, we needed more content, updated more frequently.

The new blog is designed to make this happen, with minimal extra effort. In true “Web 2.0” fashion, this blog builds on user-generated content that’s already out there. It’s an aggregator, automatically pulling in posts from authors’ individual blogs.

Who can join?
Anyone who blogs about the technology and digital media industry in New York is welcome to join up and post their content. It doesn’t matter whether you’re a venture capitalist, programmer, designer, entrepreneur, or journalist, as long as you have an interest in the NY technology and digital media industry.

How do I join?
It’s simple.

• Send us the URL of your RSS feed.
• Wordpress users: Set up a ‘nextNY’ category in Wordpress, and apply it to any posts you want to appear on the nextNY blog.
• Blogger users: Use a “nextNY” label for any post you want to appear on the nextNY blog.

We’ve posted a nextNY Blog FAQ containing guidelines, content ideas, and other information. Let’s get started and help ensure NYC’s place in the future of technology and digital media.